Another Downing St Memo – Wrongfooting Saddam

SCOOP EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a transcript of
another document leaked to the media concerning the build up
to the Iraq war. It concerns a discussion in early 2002
between the UK Ambassador to the US and then Deputy Defence
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

Importantly the following
document appears to confirm the thrust of the allegations
made concerning the so-called "Downing Street Memo", namely that the
Bush Administration had already made up its mind to go to
war against Iraq before it began the diplomatic offensive in
the second half of 2002.

1 Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy
Secretary of Defense, came to Sunday lunch on 17 March.

2
On Iraq I opened by sticking very closely to the script
that you used with Condi Rice last week, We backed regime
change, but the plan had to be clever and failure was
not an option. It would be a tough sell for us domestically,
and probably tougher elsewhere in Europe. The US could go it
alone if it wanted to. But if it wanted to act with
partners, there had to be a strategy for building support
for military action against Saddam. I then went through
the need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors and the UN
SCRs and the critical importance of the MEPP as an
integral part of the anti-Saddam strategy. If all this could
be accomplished skilfully, we were fairly confident that a
number of countries would come on board.

3 I said that
the UK was giving serious thought to publishing a paper that
would make the case against Saddam. If the UK were to join
with the US in any operation against Saddam, we would have
to be able to take a critical mass of parliamentary and
public opinion with us. It was extraordinary how people had
forgotten how bad he was.

4 Wolfowitz said that he fully
agreed. He took a slightly different position from others in
the Administration, who were focussed on Saddam's capacity
to develop weapons of mass destruction. The WMD danger was
of course crucial to the public case against Saddam,
particularly the potential linkage to terrorism. But
Wolfowitz thought it indispensable to spell out in detail
Saddam's barbarism. This was well documented from what he
had done during the occupation of Kuwait, the incursion into
Kurdish territory, the assault on the Marsh Arabs, and to
his own people. A lot of work had been done on this towards
the end of the first Bush administration. Wolfowitz thought
that this would go a long way to destroying any notion of
moral equivalence between Iraq and Israel. I said that I had
been forcefully struck, when addressing university audiences
in the US how ready students were to gloss over Saddam's
crimes and to blame the US and the UK for the suffering of
the Iraqi people.

5 Wolfowitz said that it was absurd to
deny the link between terrorism and Saddam. There might be
doubt about the alleged meeting in Prague between Mohammed
Atta, the lead hijacker on 9/11, and Iraqi intelligence (did
we, he asked, know anything more about this meeting?). But
there were other substantiated cases of Saddam giving
comfort to terrorists, including someone involved in the
first attack on the World Trade Center (the latest New
Yorker apparently has a story about links between Saddam and
Al Qaeda operating in Kurdistan).

6 I asked for
Wolfowitz's take on the stuggle inside the Administration
between the pro- and anti- INC lobbies (well documented in
Sy Hersh's recent New Yorker piece, which I gave you). He
said that he found himself between the two sides (but as the
conversation developed, it became clear that Wolfowitz was
far more pro-INC than not). He said that he was strongly
opposed to what some were advocating: a coalition including
all outside factions except the INC (INA, KDP, PUK, SCIRI).
This would not work. Hostility towards the INC was in
reality hostility towards Chalabi. It was true that Chalabi
was not the easiest person to work with. Bute had a good
record in bringing high-grade defectors out of Iraq. The CIA
stubbornly refused to recognise this. They unreasonably
denigrated the INC because of their fixation with Chalabi.
When I mentioned that the INC was penetraded by Iraqi
intelligence, Wolfowitz commented that this was probably the
case with all the opposition groups: it was something we
would have to live with. As to the Kurds, it was true that
they were living well (another point to be made in any
public dossier on Saddam) and that they feared provoking an
incursion by Baghdad, But there were good people among the
Kurds, including in particular Salih (?) of the PUK.
Wolfowitz brushed over my reference to the absence of SUnni
in the INC: there was a big difference between Iraqi and
Iranian Shia. The former just wanted to be rid of
Saddam.

7 Wolvowitz was pretty dismissive of the
desirability of a military coup and of the defector generals
in the wings. The latter had blood on their hands. The
important thing was to try to have Saddam replaced by
something like a functioning democracy. Though imperfect,
the Kurdish model was not bad. How to achieve this, I asked?
Only through a coalition of all the parties was the answer
(we did not get into military planning).

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